A Pippin of the '80s (and beyond)

There's a famous quote from Horace Walpole:

The world is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.

It's funny, but when I think about the documentary The King Of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, I think of that quote.

I remember my pal Corey Klemow recommending it and saying it was very funny, which it is--there are one or two parts where I wanted to say: Do these people know they're in an SCTV sketch?

And few things can make one feel more smugly superior than watching people caring deeply about something you care about hardly at all.

But what's most compelling about the story--a clash of the titanically pathetic kind to see who can get the highest score on Donkey Kong and get into Guinness--is its poignancy.

Yes, really. See, one of the players comes off as a self-important twat. I don't use that word as a slur very often, but there are times when only a twat will do, and I wanted to dispense with this one quickly.

Because what I'm really concerned with here is the other fellow, Steve Wiebe by name, who actually lives right around here in Seattle. He's shown as a perennial also-ran, always in second place; never in first.

But he also has this loving family.

That's them at left, Steve atop the machine.

His knockout wife is to his right, and I don't mean knockout just in the sense of being sexually attractive--though as you can see she's very pretty.

You can tell she's long-suffering--to its credit the film doesn't play around about that. But in interviews with her talking about her husband, you see just how much she is in his corner.

It's like a dream of what you would want a life partner to be.

His toddler son (sitting in front) is cute, too, and his elementary-age daughter, Jillian (to Steve's left), is precocious and smart.

She might indeed have the best line of the movie.

Jillian: I never knew that the Guinness World Record Book was so... I never knew it was so important.
Steve: I guess a lot of people are... yeah, a lot of people read that book.
Jillian: [looking at her father] Some people sort of ruin their lives to be in there.

And so watching this I think dude, you have a great life already.

I feel like I have spit in comparison.

Yet still he wasn't satisfied.